


A Street Cat Named Frumpkin

by erebones



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, Gen, M/M, cat rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 09:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14329917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: A stray cat follows Caleb home. Based on this post: https://disastertealeaf.tumblr.com/post/172967622619 which disastertealeaf tagged with "modern au with caleb and the cat is frumpkin." The plot bunny bit hard.





	A Street Cat Named Frumpkin

**Author's Note:**

> The widomauk is offscreen but I had to include hints anyway. :) Also, I love Nott.

_Need help_

The text comes in on its own before the photo. Nott feels that little jolt of panic that comes whenever Caleb swerves into _not good_ territory. She’s in the middle of a long string of question marks in reply when the image attachment arrives.

She cooes a little in spite of herself, then looks around quickly. No one in line at the corner store seems to have heard, thank goodness. She tucks her chin back into her thick grey scarf and opens the attachment.

The preview didn’t do the full thing justice. It’s a shot of Caleb’s kitchen floor (she would know that ratty 70’s peeling-at-the-edges linoleum anywhere, she’s been facedown drunk on it often enough). He’s put a chipped plate down and filled it with milk, and there’s a big orangey blob of a cat, blurred with motion, drinking out of it. The picture isn’t great, because Caleb’s flip phone isn’t great, but Nott can tell the cat is starved underneath its matted, patchy coat, and smeared with street dirt. Not unlike someone else she’d found astray on the streets.

 _Cats are lactose intolerant, Caleb,_ she types out carefully. The line moves up a pace and she nibbles thoughtlessly at her bitten-down nails as she waits for a reply.

_Oh_

A minute later.

_I knew that_

Nott looks around. She’s next up, and she’s been waiting for _hours_ just to buy these fucking smarties and a six-pack of four loko, but there’s a tiny shitty pet section on the other side of the convenience store and Caleb hasn’t left the house in _days_.

 _I’ll pick some stuff up_ , she says, and slips out of line with a wistful expression directed at the rack of slim jims and beef jerky. So close, and yet so far.

Nott _finally_ checks out and is navigating the graffiti’ed door with her arms full of wet cat food and slim jims when her phone buzzes fretfully in her pocket. “Sorry, Caleb, going to—ouch—have to—wait…” she mutters, god, _fuck_ , why is this door so fucking heavy? And then it swings open behind her and she nearly tumbles into the street and right into a familiar pair of arms.

“Hi Nott,” Molly chirps, grinning so wide she can almost see the back of his teeth. He stands aside and holds the door open like a gentleman for the tottering old lady coming in. “Christ, what is that, cat food? Have you really reached a new low?”

“Shut up, smartass, and help me with these. I need to look at my phone.” She shoves the lot into his hands and digs out her phone.

_He keeps meowing nott he’s really hungry_

_Are you getting food_

_Should i call a vet? He’s really thin?_

_Are you sure the milk will hurt him_

_Nevermind he just threw it up_

_I don’t think i can afford a vet right now_

“Oh my god, Caleb.” Nott pushes her hair out of her face and starts texting rapidly, thumbs moving a mile a minute. “Just stand there and look pretty for a minute, Moll.”

“It’s what I do best,” is the magnanimus response. “Has Caleb found a cat?”

“I guess so? He’s really worried, won’t stop texting me about it. I swear, if that cat puked on any of my stuff…”

“Need any help? I can drive us back faster than you can walk.”

Nott peers around him to his car, a rusting purple junker parked slightly askew against the curb. Normally she refuses to ride in the damn thing, but…

Molly drives. Sort of. Nott keeps her eyes on her phone and clutches her seatbelt with her free hand as Molly trundles in a vaguely zig-zag motion around the block to the apartment she shares with Caleb. She leaps out as soon as it’s in park, stomach wobbling, and trots to the front door.

Caleb flings it open before she can even get there. He looks pretty good, better than when she’d left last night for her graveyard shift at the emergency clinic, if slightly wild around the eyes. His glasses are shoved up into his hair and he’s cleanshaven, for a miracle, and in his arms, wrapped in one of his multitude of scarves, is the furry orange lump from the photo.

“Nott!” he stage whispers. “Thank goodness. You brought food?”

“Molly’s got it,” she says, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “Come on, bring it into the kitchen. You shoulda told me you were going to be rescuing half-dead strays, Cay, I would have snitched some stuff from work.”

“Don’t say that,” Caleb mutters darkly, but he follows as she pushes her way into the house and through to the kitchen.

There are dishes half-done in the sink and a window’s been cracked open, letting in a slight breeze as Nott starts piling books up on the other half of the three-legged table. It’s almost enough to mask the slight astringent sting of bleach in her nose from where Caleb had cleaned up cat sick. He must be having a good day. In a manner of speaking.

“Put him down, for goodness’ sake,” she tells him when the table is clear. He’s been lurking like a tall, gangly shadow at her elbow, not making even a peep of protest at her manhandling of his precious books, and that’s how she knows it’s serious. _Really_ serious.

Caleb lays the bundle down like it’s made of spun sugar instead of dirt and hair and knobbly ribs. It starts moving immediately, wriggling free of its scarfy prison, and Nott crouches at the edge of the table, holding out a hand.

The cat frees itself and stands still a moment, eyes darting and tail lashing lopsidedly. It’s been broken, not recently, and the last few inches are cocked to one side like a drunken flag. The cat is a mess, but its eyes are crystalline blue, and after a minute or two of just _looking_ , they fasten on Nott. There is a faint hiss that rattles in the cat’s narrow chest and Nott withdraws.

“Yeah, food first. Molly, give me one of those cans.”

Molly has been lingering in the doorway, just watching, but upon being summoned he produces a can from one of the many pockets in his voluminous coat and hands it over. Nott doesn’t bother with a can opener, because of course it’s not the nice thumb-tab kind you can just pry open—instead she works the tip of her jackknife into the top and works it around, peeling back the top before setting it gently on the table.

They wait with bated breath. Or rather, Nott and Caleb do. Molly is already on his phone snapping photos. “Can I tweet this?” he says. Caleb just grunts. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The food is already working its magic. The tail has stopped twitching quite so violently, and the cat is sniffing around the can, ears trained toward them like bright, blinging warning signs. One of them is ragged at the edges and clotted with old blood. Nott’s fingers itch for a wet wipe.

“Caleb,” she says quietly as the cat begins to eat—slowly at first, then ravenously, making rough little growl-purr sounds in its throat as it does so. “I need a bowl of lukewarm water, some iodine, and cotton balls.”

Caleb nods and drifts out of sight to the bathroom, seemingly reluctant to leave the cat’s side. As a test, while he’s gone, Nott moves a little closer to the table. The cat freezes immediately, though it doesn’t look in her direction. Nott backs away and stays still. The cat resumes its feast.

“Right. That’s going to be a bit annoying.”

Molly boosts himself on the kitchen counter. “It doesn’t like you, does it,” he says with a smirk.

“Probably smells the animal hospital on me.” Nott lifts her sleeve to her face as if she could borrow a little of that feline sensitivity, but all she can smell is hand sanitizer. “Caleb’s going to have to do the dirty work.”

“What?”

The man himself has reappeared, supplies in hand. He looks a little calmer now that the cat is tucking into real food. Nott gestures to his find.

“It doesn’t like me, I smell like the hospital. It let you hold it—”

“ _Him_.”

“Right. He let you hold him, so he’ll probably let you clean him up.”

What follows is a bit of a circus—Nott explaining what to do, Caleb fretting and flinching and asking a million _are you sures_ , and Molly perched on the counter, gleefully recording everything. From the sound of it, he’s practically livetweeting the event.

By the time the cat—Frumpkin, Caleb insists emphatically—has been cleaned up and fed and has the worst of the mats trimmed away, Fjord and Beau have shown up to watch the shitshow and Jester is spamming the group chat with requests for pictures. Alarmed by all the new activity, Frumpkin jumps off the table to the counter, over the sink, and out the window. Caleb disappears immediately to try and tempt him back inside, but to no avail.

“He’ll come back,” Beau tries to comfort him upon his return.

“He’s a stray,” Caleb says glumly. “Probably won’t see him again.” He starts cleaning up the detritus of the morning’s excitement, shoulders hunched against the room at large. Nott quietly shoos the others to the front porch and Molly distributes beer, and Nott passes out for a nap in the hammock, putting the cat out of her mind.

* * *

He shows up again, of course. Nott is scrubbing blackened bacon out of the inside of her favorite skillet, cursing under her breath, when she hears the unmistakable sounds of a cat mewing and Caleb’s delighted whispers. She tiptoes to the door and there they are on the porch, Caleb crouched down with his long legs folded up like a stork, and Frumpkin sniffing agreeably at his hands. The cat still looks a fright, but he’s obviously comfortable with Caleb, rubbing against his fingers and purring like a motorcycle engine is idling around the corner.

“You should probably take him to the vet for real,” Nott calls through the screen door, and the spell is broken. Caleb stands up in a huff, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“You scared him off,” he tuts, but he doesn’t really sound upset.

Nott shrugs. “Told you he’d be back, didn’t I?”

She doesn’t personally see Frumpkin again for about a week, but the cans of cat food slowly disappear until one day she opens the pantry and a bag of dry food flops out. Behind it is stashed an empty plastic litter pan and a bag of litter, unopened. She immediately pulls out her phone and texts Caleb.

_Are we even allowed to have a cat?_

She waits about an hour for the reply, but when it comes, her dubious attitude melts a little. It’s just a picture attachment, like before, this time of Frumpkin’s irritated face, blurred at the edges as he crouches stiffly on a gleaming metal table while a vet holds a thermometer behind his tail.

“Fuck you, Caleb,” she sighs aloud. She doesn’t mean it in the slightest.

* * *

The livetweet string goes a little bit viral, peppered with photos pulled from the group chat. Molly is reveling in it, calling himself a _veritable journalist_ , and shows up to the apartment at odd hours in hopes of documenting Frumpkin’s thrilling existence of stuffing his face and lounging on all of Nott’s clean laundry. There is orange fur all over the house, and a litter box in the bathroom, but Nott can’t bring herself to be annoyed even in pretense. Caleb is just too goddamn _happy._

She rolls in late one afternoon after pulling a midshift at the clinic, pockets weighed down with cat treats. Frumpkin kind of almost likes her, now. She’s determined to make him love her. Molly is in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up to expose his tattoos, wearing a pair of Caleb’s sweatpants and humming as he chops vegetables with a fucking butcher knife. He tips her a wink as she passes and a casual, “Gin in the freezer, if you want it.”

She does, but first she wants to check on Caleb. He’s doing better these days. A lot better. Molly, as annoying as he is, is good for him. So is Frumpkin.

The back door to the yard is open, letting in a soft summer breeze and a long slant of yellow sunlight across the brackish living room carpet. It drips like butter up the side of the couch and over Caleb’s face, which is slack and peaceful in repose. His chest rises and falls slowly, hands folded on his tummy. He’s wearing one of Molly’s inumerable band tee shirts, once black, now smothered in flecks of orange and white thanks to Frumpkin, curled up on his chest and snoozing.

The cat opens his eyes and just watches Nott watch them. His broken tail tip twitches slightly in greeting, and the eyes shut again. Nott grins and backs up into the kitchen. She’ll let them sleep a little longer—they’ve earned it.

**Author's Note:**

> For future reference in case I decide to mess around in this sandbox again, Nott is a vet tech who works mostly overnight shifts at an emergency animal hospital, Caleb is a depressed grad student of sorts, and who knows what anyone else is. Molly is a gay who can't drive but does anyway. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr! I post a lot of critical role and taz and make art sometimes.


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